


reverberation

by DrSchaf



Category: Boondock Saints (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canon-Typical Violence, Codependency, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Pining, Sibling Incest, Twincest, pre-canon to post-canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-11 06:46:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11143035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrSchaf/pseuds/DrSchaf
Summary: Lying back on the couch, listening to Connor trying to make himself comfortable on the armchair, Murphy thinks about how it would never be the other way around. He'd never be the one on the armchair while Connor sleeps on the couch. An impossible scenario and still something he only realizes now, grasping the simple concept of Connor loving him, almost four decades in.





	reverberation

**Author's Note:**

> There's a variety of "You lost" in several languages, it should explain itself.
> 
> Irish: "An bhfuil tú sásta?" - "Are you happy?"

She chases them with a broom. “ _Out_ , before I make you!”  
  
Connor dodges her crafty swing with a giggle he had better suppressed - the broom swings up and hits his backside immediately. “Ma!”  
  
“We're going, we're practically gone already, aren't we?” Murphy grips Connor by the arm and drags him to the door, hiding his grin by turning his back to the broom of terror.  
  
“You two better! If I see one of you in here before dinner, you get nothing! Not a crumb, you hear me?”   
  
Connor shakes himself loose of Murphy's grip and rolls his eyes. “Yes, Ma,” he says dutifully, poking Murphy with his elbow until he repeats it.  
  
“Did you roll your eyes at your mother?”  
  
Murphy blinks. “Run,” he whispers.  
  
They're through the door and off to the side at once, Murphy shrieking a bit, embarrassingly. Connor stumbles and catches himself on Murphy's arm before they cross the garden, almost out of broom-throwing-distance already.  
  
“Ungrateful gombeens, that's what you are! Watch me feed you for years on end and what do I get in return? _You_ two.”  
  
Connor snorts with laughter and Murphy half-turns, looking back over his shoulder. “Sorry again, Ma!”  
  
They slow down to a fast walk in time to see her shaking her head and turning back towards the house. The door slams shut and Murphy lets out a breath of relief, kicking Connor's shin for good measure.   
  
“Oi, quit it.” Connor gives him the finger and turns, pointing his head towards the path leading down to the small stream. Murphy shrugs, kicking at a stone. He follows anyhow, of course. Where else would he go.

Shortly later, he sits on a stone and watches Connor poking at some berries in his hand.  
  
“The poisonous ones are mushrooms not berries, ye twat,” he comments.   
  
“Oh?” Connor steps over. “Go on then, give them a try.”  
  
Murphy makes to grab them, but Connor snatches back his arm so fast he nearly keels over. “Jesus, what-”

“Lord's name,” Connor says, glowering. For a moment, he stares down at the berries, then he drops them in the mud and wipes his hand on his jeans. “Who knows what would've been in there.”

“What, yer afraid of worms now?” Murphy grins, kicking Connor's shin again.

Connor huffs and bends down, shoving his hand in the mud and Murphy already smells the danger, ducking out of the way— too late. 

“Bastard!” he howls, wiping mud off his face and getting his own hands dirty in the process.

Connor grins like the obnoxious tool he is and takes a few steps back. “It's an improvement, really. Who knew mud would look good on ye? Brings out yer hair and all.”

Murphy freezes, hand on his face. “Ye didn't.”

There's a beat of silence.

“Oh, come on-”

Murphy is on him, all muddy hands and face and shoes. Connor shrieks in terror and tries to twist out of his grip, almost toppling them. Breathing hard, he turns— and takes a sidestep into the water, kicking and splashing mud-water everywhere. Murphy picks up a stick, brandishing it like a sword, and the fight is _on_.  
  
Afterwards, they lie in the grass, exhausted and a bit bloody.

“Still worth it,” Murphy says, eyes closed against the brightness of the sun. Something tickles on his arm, a bug maybe, or an ant. It's strangely comfortable.

Connor scoffs, poking a weak elbow in his belly before he makes himself entirely too comfortable on Murphy's shoulder. “Ye lost,” he points out, “Or, as Miss Cassidy would say: siete stati sconfitti.”

“Defeated.” Murphy snorts and briefly thinks about having another go at it, but then he decides he's feeling too lazy for it. “Anyway, du hast verloren.”

“Yer accent is awful, please stop talking.”

“Ты потерял.”

“Lord above,” Connor whines dramatically.

Murphy laughs, secretly pleased about the thought of being able to share every stupid idea that comes to his mind without anyone but Connor understanding him. Not that he would say it out loud. No reason to give Connor's ego yet another stroke, it may grow to terrifying heights.

They dry in silence for a while and Murphy turns his face towards the sun, feeling boneless. His arm still tickles somehow, like the imaginary bug keeps making its merry way on it and he nearly dozes off until Connor presses the back of his head against his shoulder, rolling a bit.

“This is nice, no?”

Murphy sighs, breathing in the scent of the mud and grass and water and Connor, lazy in the sun. He's lost all feeling in his arm by now, with Connor crushing him. “Aye,” he says, agreeing and knowing it's not what Connor intended to say at all. “Nostalgic already?”

“Nah.” His voice is soft. “Just thinking about last time's, is all.”

Murphy hums and tries to shove down the slight pain creeping up from his belly. They're not going to be out of the world. There's no rule which says they can't come back for a visit, or to stay. No door that's closed forever. Still- still.

“An bhfuil tú sásta?” Connor asks.

Something is stuck in his throat, immediate and strange. “Not if ye keep crushing my limbs.”

Connor grumbles and rolls away from him, getting up and fruitlessly wiping at his clothes. “We best be off now, before Ma brings out the broom again.”

Murphy squints up at his brother and wiggles his fingers, trying to get the blood to flow again. “'m taking the first shower.”

They race back and he loses and listens to the lecture on 'dragging mud into the house and why is it that at least one of you is bleeding at all times' until she turns her back for long enough that he can slip out and hide in their room.

At night, packed bags leaning against the wall, Connor breathing in sleep beside him and the immortal dog next door barking at the same tree since he can remember, Murphy feels... odd. It's the question, it won't leave his head. It sticks like glue, for unknown reasons. He thinks, maybe, he heard it before. His memory fails him, he can't come up with a specific time or occasion and yet. In the back of his head, the question stays, tingling.

It's weird, he thinks.

*

“Er.”

Connor spins around, rolling his eyes and giving him the finger at the same time, all while he's shivering and hovering _just_ out of reach of the spray. “There are countless people who'd pay for a sight like this, I'll have ye know.”

“Oh, Lord.” Murphy titters and lights a cigarette, averting his eyes. He puts the paper bags on the counter, eyes on the peeling paint, and keeps busy with smoking, clearing away the groceries, thinking about starting on dinner. About the money he spent and the money they will have to spend if they ever want to take a hot shower again. In the middle of the room and - in the middle of the apartment.  
  
“Oh, turn around already. I'm decent, all right.”   
  
Murphy does, acting like he didn't know the moment Connor finished washing, when he dried off and when, after, it was safe to look again. Maybe his ability to focus on several tasks isn't at fault at all. It's this room, the moldy one-room excuse of an apartment they had no choice but taking.   
  
He says as much. “We don't have a bathroom, Connor.”  
  
“I wouldn't have noticed.” Connor wrinkles his nose, hair sticking up every way, all wrong and dark with wetness. He's making it worse by scratching through it. “What yer standing there for?”  
  
Lost, Murphy blinks ahead and flexes his fingers. “I'm making dinner,” he says belatedly, shaking his head to snap out of his spell. It works, or maybe it's Connor blathering on about the cross he wants on his skin. He wants it on both of them. Mirroring this time, so they can stand beside each other, comparing and completing. It has a different ring to it than the Virgin Mary, a different feeling to get something not identical. Fitting and irking.  
  
Murphy turns away and sets up a pot, ear tuned into Connor going on about the tattoo and in the distance, the honk of a transporter blaring through the window that never quite shuts right. He forgot to buy salt, again.  
  
“Soon, aye? I think I might've found a shop, but it's best to check them out beforehand, what ye think?”   
  
“All right,” Murphy says, looking back at Connor in his chair, relaxed and a soft smile on his face. He's so much better at all of this, adapting to change, pretending everything is fine until it _is_ , someday— It's just right they'll go for mirroring the cross. They're not the same, not by a long shot, but mostly, and most importantly, in the ways that count. “Or we could be doing it ourselves,” Murphy says at length.  
  
Connor is quiet, teeth working on the inside of his mouth for long enough that Murphy feels stupid for suggesting it and he turns away again. “We'd have to practice,” Connor says eventually, “Would have meaning then, wouldn't it? Instead of paying someone to do it. I supposed it would take longer as well, and it would hurt a bit more.”

“Are ye comparing sitting through several sessions of me poking ye with a needle... to Jesus hanging on the cross?” Murphy grins, directing it at the pot.

“Shut up,” Connor says. Murphy hears his smile, he doesn't need to turn around.

He still does. “Suppose yer right about the money though, since we're not exactly living like kings now, are we.”

Connor lights a cigarette, blinking at him through the smoke. “We never did,” he says, pausing for a moment. “It doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother ye either, Murph.”

Murphy turns away, huffing.

“I say we get used to it. A bit of adapting, nothing more. We could save some money if we'd really want to, or we could go to that bar and get us a nice pint of the black stuff and soak up the sounds of home.” He sounds too gentle and knowing, and Murphy can't stand it, willing Connor to name it for what it is: being homesick.

Swallowing around a lump, he fixes his eyes back on the stove. “So it's either getting plastered and putting up with yer naked arse wandering around here or-” The lighter hits the back of his head, right in the middle. Fucker and his good aim. “Or we could, after all,” Murphy goes on, louder, “make use of yer talent to attract fans with the simple act of showering. Could be a nice addition to our finances?”

Connor laughs, suddenly behind him. He winds his arm around Murphy's throat, holding him tight. “That's about it.” It's a strange mix between a chokehold and a hug, and Murphy butts his head back to shake himself loose, failing. “What's it going to be?”

“Think I'll have to put up with yer hideous butt, then.”

Connor snorts in his ear, tightening his grip before he steps back. “It's going to be good, I know it,” he says, wandering back to the table. “We've got to be patient, is all.”

Murphy nods. Of course it's going to be good, he never really doubted it. Doesn't mean he won't complain every now and then, and they _did_ connect already, starting all over again in a new town isn't something he would be looking forward to. Connor knows, obviously, but sometimes Murphy thinks Connor isn't sure _he_ knows. Like he'd have to guide him, firm and gentle, to make sense of his own thoughts.

“Ye could be happy here, no?”

Something tingles somewhere, maybe in the back of his head. Maybe on his arm, strangely enough. “Suppose,” Murphy says distractedly.

Connor flings a pack of cigarettes against his head.

Outraged, he raises the spoon. “Will ye end the abuse!”

“Yer gonna chase me like Ma?” Connor grins and it reaches all the way to his eyes, sitting amidst the chaos on the table and on the floor. He's holding court like a king of trash.

Murphy contemplates, weighing his options. Then he does chase Connor, spoon and all.

Later, in bed, covers drawn up around his chest and fingers against his jaw, poking at the scrape he earned by slipping on a disregarded shirt and landing face-first on the chair, he thinks: nothing changed at all.

*

Head bent back over the armrest, Murphy lies on the couch and stares at the faint red spot on the wall Rocco didn't manage to scrub off despite trying for a good long while. Looking at it upside-down, it looks just the same as the other way around, inviting a curious feeling to make its way from his toes right through his belly and up to his throat. Like a stone, but wandering.

Connor swears under his breath and when Murphy turns his head to look at him, he sees Connor staring at the same spot, swearing some more. It's quiet enough to not wake Rocco where he's curled up under the table, of all places, and unhurried enough to not get Murphy riled up as well.

Scooting down the couch, Murphy lights a smoke and keeps his eyes on Connor, taking in his silent rage, hours later, even after Rocco tried his best. It's curious, too, Murphy thinks idly. He whistles, catching Connor's attention, and lifts an eyebrow at him.

“It _was_ fucked up,” Connor says, mouth pulled into a flat line before he averts his eyes in a manner that tells Murphy more than he needs to know about how this isn't what's irking Connor at all. Round and round they go.

“Wasn't on purpose,” Murphy says and only afterwards it occurs to him that he made it sound like he's trying to take the blame— Oh. “Connor,” he says at the same time as Connor's stink eye lands on him.

“Could've been ye instead of the fucking cat.”

That's not where he thought Connor's anger was coming from and he shouldn't, by all means, make it obvious. Rocco isn't that important. He's a friend, he's in on their newly founded business even if he so obviously didn't receive the same Calling and it _should_ be him, taking the blame. He shot the cat.

The cigarette burns his finger and Murphy flips it to the side, blinking at where it burns a hole in the couch before he reaches for it with alcohol-slow movements. “I didn't secure it,” he says without wanting to, pointless, sluggish thoughts tumbling free and for what - redirecting Connor's anger at him. As if he needs any more of it.

As if Connor would ever be angry with him.

“Shut it,” Connor says, blowing smoke out of his nose. Through the vague fog of too many cigarettes, the red rims of his eyes are too easy to see. He lifts his beer to his mouth, looking _very_ solemn, and takes a huge gulp.

The wandering stone disappears, just like that. “Just saying,” Murphy says and grins a bit, fingers drawn to the cross on his arm now that there's finally something in its place instead of naked skin, something real, something to feel touch press when the itch comes back. “Technically, it was me who killed the cat.”

Connor snorts like a tool. “Technically, yer a twat,” he says and sighs long and hard, sounding like he's 90 and about to bite the dust. “Long day tomorrow, we should probably get some shut-eye.”

Murphy scoots back up the couch and resumes his earlier position, eyes drawn to the stain on the wall, staring at it until he spots the hidden images. Cloud gazing but with red-brown blood instead, the white paint a stark contrast behind it. If he turns his head the right way, he can even smell it, sharp in his nose. The cleanser, not the blood. “There's a beetle,” he informs Connor.

“Yer a beetle.” Connor squints, pursing his lips in concentration. “It's a dog.”

“ _Balls_.”

They stare at Rocco twitching in sleep under the table. He puts his thumb in his mouth, and they look away again.

“Anyway,” Connor says, raising his bottle and clinking it against his teeth, “Ye'd suck at the inkblot test, obviously. What ye don't suck at, surprisingly, is shooting evil men.”

“Oh,” Murphy breathes, grinning, “is it this time of the night? We're gonna trade compliments?”

“I suppose.” Connor glares for a second, then he lights another cigarette, hiding behind a puff of smoke. Murphy sees his grin anyhow, the teeth flashing through the fog. It looks a bit eerie, like he's something that lives in the dark, hiding.

“I suppose ye don't suck at making plans, then,” he says fatalistically, seeing Connor grin again, all the way like Connor this time. He grins back, still upside-down.

“I think we're on the right path.”

Murphy blinks, watching Connor watching him. It takes him a moment to catch up with the change of topic and when he does, he nods, looking at Connor still looking at him. The grin is gone, chased away by something like a smile but only half-way, like the energy for a full smile left Connor somewhere in the middle of it.

“We are,” Murphy says, focusing on the down-half of the smile until it curl upwards. His mouth is dry, aching for another drink. He lights a smoke instead.

Connor makes himself more comfortable, leather of the armchair creaking under his weight. “Yer happy with all of this?”

A flash-hot surge of memory, and the wrong one: Wetness on a dry ceiling, dropping down on him, dropping down on Connor. A second christening for them both, panting in the stifling cell.

It's over as soon as it came, leaving a bad taste in Murphy's mouth and adding to the dryness. He curls his fingers around the cross on his arm. Connor waits for an answer, boring his eyes against the side of his head. “If ye get me another beer,” Murphy says, evading on purpose and not looking over until he hears Connor getting up, looking cranky and still bringing him a bottle. Before he hands it over, he opens it with a twist of his hand.

“Last one, then we should get some sleep.”

Murphy takes a few gulps, burning away wrong memories and the grit in his mouth. “Yes, Ma,” he says after, rolling his eyes until Connor rolls his and he's in the clear again. They sit in silence, finishing their beers, and each passing minute, Murphy feels something lift from his chest, something heavy and dark, without having a shape. Connor won't ask again because he knows Murphy will lie. Murphy won't bring it up again because he doesn't know why he lies. The question is as simple as the answer should be.

The question wasn't the question. There's a question _inside_ , buried like in a matryoshka doll. In itself, it's harmless, but he can't bring himself to even verbalize it in his thoughts. The question, not the answer.

He thinks, just before he drifts off, thinking about the answer: I should be.

*

“Murphy,” Connor says. The sun illuminates him from the side and Murphy has to shield his eyes to even look in his direction. “In general, not now, right here... What ye think? Yer happy with where we're at?”

Murphy looks away when he can't make out Connor's face without burning out his eyeballs and blinks down at his arm instead, tracing the lines of the cross, keeping watch in case they're going to melt off and spill right from his skin. “I'm gonna die from a heatstroke soon if that's what yer asking.” There's a single bottle of water left, piss-warm by now, and his skin feels like it's burning up, shirt long since abandoned in a pitiful heap on the backseat of their car. They're in the middle of fuck-all and everything around them is _sand_ and Noah had better be coming back soon or there won't be much left of his beloved boys.

“Quit whining.” Connor keeps lounging on the hood of the car for some reason, shirt tucked under his back to avoid his skin from being cooked by the metal.

Murphy rolls his eyes and sits down with a thump, back against the door to hide from the sun. Fucking sand, he thinks, and fucking car too, conveniently ignoring that he was responsible for the map and therefore the reason they ran out of gas in the first place. Maybe fucking Connor as well, just for the sake of it. For daring to ask that question, here, at the end of everything. Feels like the end of the world, even if it isn't.

With a grunt, he stretches his legs out in front of him and the sound of his heels scraping over the pebbles grates on his nerves the same way Connor sighing above him does.

“I admit thinking of our grand escape as a bit more... grand,” Connor says haltingly. As if Murphy demanded an answer. “Still, we've got nowhere to be and we can do whatever pleases us, that's a positive.”

“We can't do whatever we want,” Murphy says and tries not to sound mean. “Ye remember we're fugitives, no? There's a whole lot of things we cannot do and a notably short list of things we _can_ do.” He huffs, annoyed with himself and the situation. Sweat runs down his body in the most questionable places and he hasn't felt this gross since- he can't even recall. Maybe since Connor got his revenge and body checked him in the tank full of entrails, back at the meatpacking factory.

Something rises in his throat, feeling like dread. He swallows it down, and then the car creaks and the air stirs— It lands on his face. “Fucking _rank_ ,” he yells as soon as he knows what it is. He struggles to his feet, peeling Connor's sweat-soaked shirt off his head.

Connor laughs at him, skin shiny with sweat and darker than before, tanning while Murphy gets sunburned and peels for days, after. “Told ye to quit yer whining.” Connor grins and then he comes closer, sitting and pulling Murphy down next to him. “And yer not smelling like flowers, either.” One of Connor's bony elbows digs into his side, and Murphy's annoyed huff turns into a titter.

Shutting his eyes, Murphy leans back against the door, inching away from his brother and the extra warmth he's radiating. His mind feels fuzzy. Stupid. “Ye think it's hot enough in the car that the bullets are gonna melt?”

“Nah.”

After a few seconds of silence, Connor gets up, followed by a variety of too loud noises in the desolate heat. A hiss when he's touching the hot plastic of the door-handle, the creaking of the old metal when he opens the door, the sound of him rummaging around in their bags and after, a thrilled whoop. “Peppermint?” Connor grins, just a little bit manic, and holds up an indefinable packet. It looks like it's back from the dawn of time. Murphy blinks at it, feeling slow and watching Connor sitting down again. He wiggles the peppermint in front of his face, making the rosary around his neck swing like a pendulum.

It draws Murphy's eyes like he's ready for hypnosis. By now, the heat must've sucked out even the smallest bit of water from his body. Maybe he'll never have to pee again in his life.

“More like _a_ peppermint, as in singular.” Connor pulls a face.

Impending heatstroke or not, Murphy laughs at him. “That's fucking disgusting.” He watches in awe when Connor shoves the whole lump in his mouth, chewing loudly. “I have no words,” Murphy informs him, “If ye die out here because ye accidentally inhaled the peppermint of doom, don't expect me to do anything about it.”

Connor makes an outraged sound around the minty ball and raises one sweaty arm, maybe to punch him, but Murphy ducks out of reach and uses the movement to angle himself towards the smokes.

“Just saying”, he says, fumbling with the lighter to hide how he feels his face getting softer when Connor spits the ball out with a disgusted moan.

“Shut it.” Connor reaches for his hand and takes the smoke, taking a few drags of his own.

“Yer getting peppermint all over it.”

Connor looks sly, and then his lips form a perfect O and he shoves the filter in all the way, because of course that's what he does.

Murphy slaps at him until Connor surrenders and then, yeah, he tastes peppermint. He shakes his head and lets it fall against the car behind him, weirdly conscious of the wet filter between his fingers. Flexing them and looking at the sand, the never-changing stretch of dirty orange and brown, he puts the smoke between his lips again, inhaling.

“Da's coming back.”

Murphy follows his line of sight and sees a small figure walking down the road, flickering in and out of view through the waves of heat rising up from the street. Something is in his hands, looking like canisters. Murphy sighs, briefly thinking about bringing up Connor calling Noah 'Da'. They've only known him for a couple of months, he doesn't know how Connor can love him already. How he seems to have forgotten that Noah _shot_ them and that he'd worked for the same people they set out to destroy. What Connor doesn't understand, in his opinion: it's not mistrust that keeps him from loving Noah. It's self-preservation in its natural form.

“I know we did right,” he says out loud, picking up their earlier topic like picking at a scab, pretending to let it air out, to help it heal. Pretending it has to be done before they're no longer alone, pretending any number of things so Connor doesn't know how the question won't leave him alone. The variety, the combined weight of it, has sunken under his skin, under his tattoo, right under the cross.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Connor staring at him. He doesn't look confused and he doesn't say anything, either.

“It's our Calling and Yakavetta deserved to die,” Murphy says, nodding along to his own words. Maybe Connor didn't forget at all. Maybe he _forgave_.

Connor picks at a stone, turning it over in his hand without looking away from the side of his face. “But this isn't how ye pictured the aftermath.”

“Nah.” Murphy shrugs and holds out the smoke again. “It's stupid, I know.” Connor can't have forgiven Noah, it's out of the question. If he can't forgive Noah, deep down without admitting to why, then Connor certainly can't. He's overbearing and protective and he loves so fiercely it would scare any number of people.

He knows whom Connor loves most. It's blood and bone for the both of them, family ties woven deep into their souls. The difference: He loves him back, and Noah doesn't. Not like this, never like this.

“It's not,” Connor says, reacting to a conversation Murphy hardly recalls. He tugs one last time at the dying cigarette and doesn't offer any more words.

There's nothing to say anyhow, it is how it is.

Later – countless hours passed in silence in the car, later – when he's lying in another shitty motel bed, he thinks back to Connor's initial question and he rips off the scab, watching it bleed, and he thinks: no.

*

First, it's the flu.  
  
Noah (Da) says it's to be expected, with the wind and the rain and the lack of central heating, the constant wetness that never goes away for good. Afterwards, it's the stew. There's something shady about it because all three of them eat from the same pot and he's the only one getting the stomach flu from it. That takes a couple of days too, and by then he's a bit thin - which would be fine if he had stayed on top of the horse instead of falling down and breaking both his arm and his leg. For a while, his appetite disappears.  
  
Noah flees to town with Murphy getting stir crazy but that, too, passes. Hale and hearty and all of that shite, a phrase he has to repeat to both of them several times when they collectively forget about him having survived beatings, gunshot wounds, and torture.  
  
After, Connor sees him naked for the first time in months, barging into the bathroom like he does— Every once in a while, something sits in Murphy's stomach, coiling hot and heavy and sinking down like a stone. It's a hidden thought, a brief burst of nostalgia about a time he didn't think he'd miss; drafty, moldy and cold, no privacy, an old joke about saving money instead of going to Doc's, a half-remembered talk about adapting. Sometimes, only when it's dark, pitch black with the lack of artificial light for miles and miles on end, Murphy thinks about asking Connor if it's all right to need to adapt now as well, to adapt _back_ , to sometimes, only briefly, miss having less privacy.

He never asks, but he could. Maybe he will, some day. Not when Connor is throwing a hissy fit though, pointing at ribs and hip bones and everything else he finds disagreeable, as if Murphy did any of it on purpose. He prattles away about Murphy grieving and being more prone to sickness because of it and Murphy lets his _bony_ arm swing in an impressive arch, clocking his brother a good one.

Connor doesn't fight back, not even in the slightest, and stews over something or the other for a few days, no amount of prodding brings anything forth. Instead, he tries to be sneaky about serving Murphy bigger portions, resulting in a fistfight over the dinner table and Noah ignoring them both.

Later, when they're both done nursing their split lips, Connor walks over and sits on the edge of his bed. “Will ye help me with a tattoo?” he asks, “I've done some sketches.” His idea is a good one, now that they can't go to church any longer and have to practice their faith in private. Father Sibeal is too familiar with them to hear their confessions, or that's what Murphy tells himself; he hasn't asked Connor for his reasons.

Most days, they make due by praying before bed, doors shut and windows shut and Noah asleep next door. Sometimes, when they're kneeling too close, their elbows brush. Murphy never mentions it. Other times, his hand tries to creep down his arm, itching to curl around the cross. He won't allow it, but he lets his fingers brush against it, and Connor doesn't mention that, either.  
  
They plan to start right away, and Connor insists on starting with Murphy's tattoo first. Then he insists on scheduled times and _then_ he insists on regular intervals and Murphy feels his mouth pull down with the realization of what the bloody idea is about.  
  
“When did ye come up with the idea anyway?” he asks, trying to sound casual and stealthily arching away from the pen drawing the first lines on his back. It tickles and it doesn't stay where it should, the feeling of it wanders somehow, like an infection. For a moment, it's in his throat.   
  
“Why?” Connor says instead of answering, which is as good as an admission.   
  
Murphy sucks in an angry breath and then he can't help it and presses his hand against his throat, willing the weird itch to go away. “Just thinking, cause the idea is really nice.”

“Spit it out before I start with the needle, will ye.”  
  
Murphy huffs, shaking Connor's hand off and turning around. “Did ye plan to get the whole tattoo yerself?” he asks, going right on, “Cause from where I'm standing, it looks like ye've been working on these sketches for a while and now yer using it to keep track of the _state_ I'm in.”  
  
For a moment, Connor stays silent and Murphy can't read his face. “It's convenient, aye,” he says eventually, “but I've always planned it to be ours, not mine.”  
  
There's nothing he can say without sounding soppy, so Murphy turns again, giving Connor silent permission to continue and trying to ignore how he feels a bit looked upon, like showing Connor his back is something else entirely with the knowledge of Connor wanting to keep an eye on— how he heals. It's suffocating and overbearing, and the itch comes back at once. In his mind, Murphy stamps down on it, harsh and definite. “I suppose it'll take us a while to get them done,” he says just to say something. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Connor nodding. “Ye'll let me start on ye as well, no?”

“After.”

That's the end of it.

It makes sense, Murphy tells himself, and then again, all the while until Connor finishes for the day and they go to bed. It makes sense because he _was_ ill rather often and nowadays, with open fires and wind and rain and the outdoors, he never lounges about like he used to do, more or less shameless when it was just Connor and him. And maybe, but that thought he only allows once, stopping it from taking root immediately - maybe Connor needs time to adapt to having more privacy, too.

Two days later, it's raining buckets. The drops splatter against the tarp, almost loud enough to drown out the bleating sheep and the occasional snap of the fire in front of them.  
  
Connor lets himself sink down, groaning like an old man. It matches the beard beginning to grow out on his face.

Murphy kicks his boot. “Want the rest?” He shakes the can in his hand - chicken noodle soup, again. Forever, probably.  
  
“Nah, ye eat up,” Connor says, distracted with unnecessarily poking at the fire, but then his face gets wary and he looks over again. “Aye?”   
  
“Oh, don't start.”

“Wouldn't want ye to-”

Murphy stares at him, incredulous. “Ye've got to be joking.”

“Shut yer gob, ye don't know what I-”

“'Wouldn't want ye to get sick again'.”

They stare at each other.

Connor sighs, sounding weary. “Can ye blame me?”

“I'm not some fragile bird, I can sit in the fucking rain without dying,” Murphy forces out. “Just let me be, will ye.”

“I'm trying to make this work, all right? This is what we have now, fucking sheep shit and rain. I can't do my work if yer about to die every other day.”

“Who the fuck asked ye to take care of everything? Not _me_.” His arm itches.

“Well, someone has to! We chose this life, so we'll have to make it work somehow and that means ye have to be fucking healthy enough and _that_ means ye've got to give yerself time and fucking eat, for fuck's sake.”

Murphy stares, lump in his throat. “I didn't choose this.” Connor glances at him out of the corner of his eyes. “This, all of it, isn't something that I chose. It happened.”

Connor flexes his fingers like he wants to reach out. “What yer saying.”

Murphy stills, acutely overwhelmed with wishing himself back to their cold bedroom, creaky window, cold ash and needle and ink ready to go. Then he thinks of another bedroom, even older and just as cold, with drafty windows and needle and ink ready to go, and then he can't stop himself any longer, not caring if he's being unfair or not. “He did this,” Murphy says, “He did all of this. He sits in the fucking house all day, he's _always_ there, he never fucking leaves and he never fucking talks. He doesn't even pray, Con, have ye ever seen him pray? This is not- If this is us repenting for our sins, he's not doing a very good job at it.”

Connor sits frozen. “Murphy,” he says urgently, but then he swallows and looks away, and Murphy feels a nasty wave of hot mud flooding through him. “I want to make this good for ye,” Connor says, voice thin. “I'm _trying_ -”

“What? Ye don't have to try to make me comfortable, none of this is on ye.”

Connor lets out a shaky breath, masking it with a cough. “When I'd ask ye now-” He stops, clenching his jaw. “We have to arrange ourselves. Ye understand that, no?”

“Yeah.”

“Is there anything-” Connor stops again. “Is there something that would make it more bearable here, for ye? That would make ye happy?”

Murphy stares, hoping, _praying_ Connor thinks it's because he stepped over the line, not because of the full-body shudder running through him, hopefully hidden in the dark—

“Please,” Connor says.

His heart clenches so painfully he can't breathe for a moment. Swallowing, Murphy looks at the ground, at the sheep, at the distance, and then he clear his throat. “I'll get used to it.” The silence stretches on until Murphy feels guilty for reasons he doesn't understand and he picks up the can again, not looking at his brother, and finishes the rest of his noodles.

Later, when the fire burns low enough for even more stars to show up in the sky, countless, endless dots of light burning in the night, Murphy lies awake and stares and stares, Connor right next to him, breath even and peaceful. He thinks: no. He thinks: I don't know.

*

Connor keeps stepping over the line. 

At first, it's funny. Now it's stressful and sometimes - hidden under a thick layer of decades of trading jokes - it's painful.  
  
Murphy asks once, and again after another instance of too sharp laughter, another joke crossing the line and another playful hit that lands too hard (even deeper down too, in that place Murphy hides, the one where he's alone and not in on the joke, the mood, the temper; a deep-seated fear of separation as old as he is himself). He stops asking after trying to amuse Connor and getting called gay for the trouble, and then afterwards, teasing Romeo in a too familiar way and not putting a stop to it. He's no longer able to distance himself from any of it.  
  
They're together in this, here, now, always, and if Connor thinks befriending a Mexican sidekick is brilliant, then that's what they're going to do.  
  
After another public fight and some unexpected winnings coming their way, Connor barges in, closing the door with force and _slumping_ on the chair. “I couldn't take one more minute.”  
  
Murphy blinks and reaches for a smoke. “What now?”  
  
Connor sighs and shifts until he can look over and still lay his head against the backrest. He gestures vaguely. “People.”  
  
Here it comes. “Oh?”  
  
“It's a bit much.” Connor scratches at a beard that no longer exists, staring ahead. “I forgot how exhausting it is to talk to someone who can't get a hint.”  
  
“Ye seemed cheerful enough, especially with Romeo.”  
  
Connor sighs again, this time even more exaggerated. “I think he carries a torch for us both.”  
  
“He does, doesn't he.” Murphy titters, turning quiet afterwards. “I missed it, though.” The biggest truth, and a lie. He missed it, he did. What he could've lived without: this. What he couldn't: everything before.  
  
“I mean, yer a giant twat and I want to clock ye a new one at least once a day, but being around ye is the easiest thing in the world. Doesn't take any effort.” Connor smiles, and Murphy is torn between smiling back and venting his anger, or maybe clocking _him_ a new one. The audacity to sit there, fucking smiling while he let out his shitty mood on him since they stepped foot on this shithole of a ship.  
  
“That's nice of ye to say,” Murphy says, going for a glare instead of a punch. “Since I'm the one who had to put up with yer shite over the last days, I can't say that I want to repay that compliment.”  
  
“The fuck yer on about?”

Murphy steels his nerves. “There are jokes and there's being a total wanker, guess which one fits more.”   
  
For a moment, Connor stays silent and then he averts his eyes, looking so unlike him Murphy finds he doesn't even want to know anymore. “I apologize, I didn't mean to hurt ye.”   
  
This is— foreign territory. Connor doesn't apologize with words, he apologizes with touches and tattoos and sheep-duty and an extra blanket. “Wasn't that bad,” Murphy says, reaching for a smoke to avoid eye-contact.  
  
“Sure sounded like it.” Through the smoke, he feels Connor's eyes on him. “Will ye let me explain?”  
  
Murphy coughs and rubs his wrist over his mouth, uncomfortable all the way. “It's not that big of a deal, all right?”  
  
“Well fuck _ye,_ ” Connor says, straightening. “Don't bring it up and act the maggot if it's not as bad anyway.”  
  
Murphy stares at Connor's tense face, at the visible lines around his eyes and his mouth. Before, they were hidden under a thick layer of coarse hair. He knows - he felt it. Under his fist. “Why am I the one being at fault now? That's what I was talking about. Don't ye notice that yer being a bastard?”  
  
“I fucking do. I'm on edge, I can't control this.”  
  
“I- What?”

“For the last fucking decade, it used to be just us. On this ship are hundreds of people.” Connor pulls a face, directing it at Murphy as if he's to blame for it. “I was a people person and now I can only stand to be around _ye_ for longer than 30 minutes. And yer the one getting the backlash.”  
  
The familiar itch doesn't come. “Yer telling me ye knew what ye were doing and for what? Cause ye have to talk to strangers now, Connor?” It's goosebumps instead.

“Don't fucking test me. I'm trying here.”

“Trying to do what?” He knows he's being an arsehole, but Connor isn't the only one worked up about their new situation and Connor, most likely, isn't the one dealing with goosebumps on top of it.

“What I always fucking do,” Connor says, loud and angry. “Keeping things working, keeping me sane, trying to keep ye fucking sane!”

It takes more effort to stay seated than Murphy anticipated. “Ye've got to stop,” he says, trailing off to gather his thoughts, to get his head back in fucking order. He's losing his grip on— everything and there's not a single reason for it.

Connor shrugs. “Not possible.”

“It fucking is! We've been over this before, not everything is yer responsibility. Stop being so fucking _dense_ , no one asked ye to carry all of this shite. I'm here, too.”

“Yeah, well.” Connor stands and starts to pace. “When ye say we've been over this before, ye remember the last time, no?”

Murphy stares at Connor's erratic movements, ignoring the goosebumps and the itching and the mud, coiling. “If yer gonna bring up me being sick again, I'll break yer jaw.”

Connor stops, head high and face stoic. “If that's what it takes,” he says, and Murphy is done.

He's out of his seat, stalking over. “Ye fucking bastard,” he laughs, heart in his throat and words tumbling out without his permission, “Yer trying to make me believe yer being an arsehole because of yer dedication to do something for _me_?”   
  
“If I had known how, I would've gotten ye out of Ireland before!” Connor balls his fists, looking to the side. “Ye think I didn't see ye being miserable all these fucking years? That mean I'm a bastard for trying to look out for ye?”

His fist connects with Connor's jaw with less force than he planned. It's more a wake-up call instead of a punch and heat rises in his cheeks at once. “I'm saying this one more fucking time, Connor, then I'll break yer jaw for real.” He stares until he catches Connor's eyes. “I don't need saving. I'm 36 fucking years old, I can take care of myself.”

Rocking forward, Connor lets out a small sound. “Doesn't matter how old ye are,” he says, opening his mouth to say something else- and then he doesn't.

Murphy waits, on edge, ready to jump off the fucking ship with his nerves all over the place. “What?” he demands eventually.

Connor shrugs, looking _small_ \- which is just ridiculous. “Don't ye feel like that, too.”

“No.” Something in Murphy roars. “ _Cause_ ,” he stresses when Connor makes to turn away, “Cause I don't think of ye as someone else. I think of 'us'.” He grabs another smoke, lighting it to have something to focus on instead of the roaring in his head, the ants on his skin and the insistence of a thought trying to rise in his head—

Connor clears his throat and paces away. Then he comes back. “That's good,” he says awkwardly, “Ye still- will ye let me.”

“I'll have to, no? Not like ye changed yer mind about anything, ever.”

Looking sheepish, Connor steals his smoke. “It's just a matter of habit anyway. I'll – we'll get used to it again, it's not like we lived in a cave before.”

“And we're gonna have a real job again.”

“A Calling.” Connor smiles, rare and unexpected. Murphy blinks.

“Aye.” He steals back the smoke and sits, trying for something that qualifies as an open face without showing anything that's happening inside of him. Then he gets betrayed by his mouth. “I always liked it best when it was just us.”

Connor stands motionless.

“It hasn't been just us for a while,” Murphy adds, mortified when it's clear that Connor won't say anything and that he needs to explain his word-vomit now. “Noah's always been there, in the house. Here, the door won't even close properly. There's always someone just outside and back when—” A few more words and he can just as well share it all, every last muddy thought.

When he looks up, Connor is right there, standing next to his chair and looking uncomfortable. “Back at Rocco's? I only put up with it because ye asked me to.”

“That's fucking stupid.” Murphy grins, suddenly giddy with it all.

“It fucking is.” Connor grins back and the strained tension disappears, just like that.

“We're done now? That was fucking awful.” Murphy grins again, face warm. “Actually, I could use a to drink.”

Connor rounds the chair. “Murphy,” he says and Murphy feels his eye twitch because he's not safe after all, Connor could _see_ it, he saw and now he'll ask— “Will ye be happy? Murph.”

He's on fire. “Fuck off,” he says, swatting at Connor's hand, “I'll be fucking happy when we're off this fucking ship and yer healed from this strange sea sickness that has taken over yer brain, obviously.” He grins ahead, insides turning to ash and Connor at his back, not even able to see what he's forcing on his face.

It's quiet for longer than reasonable and he won't turn around, not while he's still burning, but then Connor says, “I didn't mean it as a joke.” and squeezes his shoulder one last time before he's off to the side, poking at one of their bags.

Murphy stays at the table until the fire to burns down, against all odds not leaving ashes behind but a small patch of something like mud, smoldering, making itself comfortable between his ribs, dipping lower sometimes, and lower.

At night, he lays awake, engine roaring around him, noises everywhere; conversations in languages he missed dearly, boots against steel, laughing and fighting and the ever-present hum of the water outside and he thinks: maybe.

*

Hearing Doc's snoring despite the hallway and two closed doors in between, Murphy grins at the ceiling.  
  
“Shh,” Connor says even though nobody said anything except him, and he doesn't stop now, either. “My foot is stuck.”  
  
Murphy snorts and rolls his head on the cushion, trying to get a look at what Connor is up to. —Apparently being stuck in the upholstery of the armchair. “What did ye do that for?” Murphy asks, “And since when yer down there anyway?”  
  
“A while.”  
  
Romeo sleeps on, undisturbed. If it wasn't for his quiet mumbling, Murphy would be convinced he died.

With a groan, he heaves himself up and stumbles over, blinking down at Connor lying on the floor. “So,” he says, tittering, and then he forgets where we wanted to go with it. He pulls at Connor's leg, first with his hand fisted in his jeans, then with both of them around his calf, and then a bit more. And a bit more, and then Connor boxes his thigh and he gives up. “It's stuck,” he says and lets himself plop down, neatly avoiding Connor's elbow coming his way.

“Think it's my shoe,” Connor says, yawning. “Probably stuck under the thing under the cushion.”

Murphy laughs, lying back and staring at Connor staring at the ceiling. It's nice down here, if a bit smelly. Connor isn't, though. He smells clean like he always does. He thinks.

“Does this count as being alone?”

The mud hasn't stopped swirling ever since he found out it was there. He's breathless, suddenly, staring at Connor's ear. “More or less.”

“Ye still remember it?”

“What?”

Connor faces him, glazed eyes and flushed cheeks, looking like he's lost in a memory _he_ can barely recall. Which can't be good, under any circumstances. Best to bury those things, even the muddy greatness of it all.

“I was an arsehole, wasn't I? The last few weeks.” There's an air of softness about him that has Murphy's heart beating in overtime. “Wish I could turn it off, the overbearing.”

Murphy shakes his head before he knows he's doing it. “'s fine,” he says and he thinks he maybe even means it.

“Not what ye said last time.”

“I'm-”

“Nah.” Connor shakes his head, rolling it on the dirty carpet. “Don't. Ye don't have to. I know I'm awfully controlling sometimes, ye mustn't come up with excuses for me.”

He wants to make something up, anything to diffuse the loaded atmosphere, the rising heat in his belly. Then the panic when he can't come up with anything— “Connor,” he says, a bit helpless and loose with alcohol and the darkness and the dirty floor and Doc's snoring.

“It's going to be good, this time. I just need to remind ye what if feels like to- it's going to be good.”

“To what.”

Connor shrugs. He doesn't look away. “To love this,” he says, not pulling a face or rolling his eyes. Straight up meaning it, from the look of it and suddenly, something rises in Murphy that isn't a stone or heat or mud at all; it's a yearning, for it, for them, for him. “And ye said so, didn't ye? That ye'd be happy when we're off that fucking ship?” Connor grins, oblivious.

Murphy forgets all words. He breathes, trying to control it, failing when something gets stuck in his throat as big as his heart.

“Ye look about ready to keel over,” Connor says, grinning like a tool, “If ye weren't lying already. Let's get ye to bed, aye?”

Murphy nods, watching on how Connor fumbles with his foot until he finally pulls free and uses the same foot to pester him to get up from the floor. He does, eventually, while his fingers close around his rosary. Just in case.

Lying back on the couch, listening to Connor trying to make himself comfortable on the armchair, Murphy thinks about how it would never be the other way around. He'd never be the one on the armchair while Connor sleeps on the couch. An impossible scenario and still something he only realizes now, grasping the simple concept of Connor loving him, almost four decades in.

*

Noah fades and they sit back, eyes shying away from the photograph of their Ma. The implication is too much to bear, now at least, with bodies littering the floor, Romeo nowhere in sight, Connor's breath hitching and both of them bleeding.

Murphy sits back on his arse and watches Connor crossing himself, and as an afterthought, he does the same. A quick prayer, heartfelt but short, and if the Lord expects more of him, he shouldn't have put them in this situation. Outside, crunching over gravel, several cars pull up. Somewhere behind them, someone gasps like they're drowning, and Murphy doesn't turn around.

“Fucking shit.” Connor wipes his arm over his eyes and turns, squatting right next to him. “Murph.”

“'m here.”

“We need to get out of here real fucking fast, can ye move? How badly were ye hit? I can take some of yer weight-”

Reaching out, Murphy clamps down on Connor's arm, stopping him and grounding himself. “They're outside.” He glances at Noah, at the way he's looking almost peaceful.

Connor sucks in a sharp breath, tensing all over and staring at the side of Murphy's face. The seconds tick by like they're moving through syrup, almost slow enough to freeze them, trapped in resin and stuck in this moment forever. “Murphy,” Connor says again, voice rough and somehow urgent now.

Murphy looks at him.

“We can sit here and wait until they come in to take us or we go outside and meet them. Or we go down fighting.” Just like that. Calm and simple and quiet.

“Aye,” Murphy says.

“Murph.” Connor's mouth is a flat line. Blood pools under his body. Maybe under his own, too. “Out of those three, what would ye rather want?”

No, Murphy thinks. _No_. It breaks out of him anyhow, voice breaking, “Is this ye asking me what I'd be most happy with?”

There's only silence and Connor looking at him, right here in this room full of blood. Murphy sobs, once, pressing his wrist over his eyes. The other stays on Connor's arm, holding tight like a lifeline. This can't be fucking it, there's so much- there's _everything_ else still, this can't be it.

They limp outside, heads high.

When he's lying in a freshly made bed, Connor just an arm's length away, Romeo's machines beeping quietly and the smell of antiseptics all around them, he thinks: we could've. We were so close to.

*

The first week, Murphy thinks it could be worse. They're in the hospital wing and there's a single guard inside the room, probably numerous more outside, but they don't make an appearance yet. For now, with all three of them in the same room, they're left in peace. It can't stay like this, he knows, but Connor is there and Romeo is there - if unconscious -, his own wounds are closing and Connor's are closing: it's as pleasant as a stay in prison can be. Except for the inmates outside their window grating on his nerves after a while and grating on Connor's nerves so fiercely he starts to groan whenever he even _looks_ in the direction of the window. Sometimes, the chants of the protesters carry all the way to their room. Altogether, it's bearable.  
  
The second week has them discharged from medical, finally, but Romeo has to stay behind, still not woken up from his coma. One of the doctors - the nice one who winks at him once, during a check of his too many bandages - tells someone just outside the door how it 'doesn't look good'. He might've raged a bit, after, but Connor brings him down by ramming an overly strong thumb on the bloody part of his arm bandage, and that is that.

A brief thought flutters through his mind, right after the rage dies down: He should've raged about Noah, Da, the same way he did over Romeo. Who isn't even dead, who didn't die in that greenhouse, right underneath his fingers. Or maybe raging about Noah wouldn't have been right either. He hasn't known Romeo for long, but it's clear he's not ready to go, there's fight in him, a will to live, a vibrancy not easily subdued. Romeo wouldn't lie back and die so readily like Noah did. He thinks, but only once, fleeting and immediately trying to forget about it again - he thinks, maybe this is what Noah came after them for.  
  
The next day comes with a surprise that isn't a surprise as at all, it's a childhood fear transferred to real life, a living and breathing nightmare pulled right out of buried memories of green grass, stone houses and scary tales beneath the covers. They spend one night in separate cells on the same floor, opposite of each other, and Murphy stands at the bars, flaring his nostrils in the dark. He's numb. Connor seems to lose his voice, looking over every now and then, eyes in the dark and face unreadable. The numbness spreads and by morning, they won't let Murphy find out any longer.   
  
It takes five guards to escort Connor down the hallway. He doesn't make a sound, throwing wordless punches, getting tasered and stumbling up again. Murphy hears the snap of bone, sees one guard go down with his knee bent the wrong way, then the rest of the guards raise their guns and herd Connor forward until he disappears from view. Raging for the both of them, Murphy stops when his knuckles are bloody and his voice gone, and then he sits on the floor and waits for Connor to come back.  
  
He doesn't.   
  
In week three, they move him to solitary confinement with a guard outside the door. They tell him a lot of things: about protection from the other inmates, about protection of the other inmates from him, about a pending evaluation of his state of mind, about attorneys and rights and meals and yard time. Murphy finds he cannot answer.   
  
Once a day, he sees Connor in the hallway.

Connor turns right, escorted by two guards, when Murphy walks the way he came, guided out to the yard. It lasts a minute, maybe less, not enough, never enough, but it makes him able to think and breathe again. Connor looks haggard and strong and proud, and he holds himself stiff with his wounds and sometimes, maybe, or maybe he's imagining it - sometimes the corner of his mouth twitches. Murphy keeps focusing on it, willing his brain to make sense of it until they pass each other and he has to wait for the next day. It goes on, establishing as a routine quickly enough to become his fixpoint.

In week four, the guard outside his cell tells him about Romeo's transfer to a medical facility. He's nice enough that he could've been one of the protesters outside, in another life. He isn't, he guards his cell instead, but still, he tells him when there's no reason for it, just out of kindness.

Murphy manages to push it aside for all of two days, mostly to stomp down on the thoughts trying to break free in the process of contemplating Romeo possibly _dying_. A few nights after, when he finally can't hold back the thoughts any longer, he knows, unexpected and still shocking: it's a curse. The dying and the blood, the death they've seen and the death they've brought. It's punishment for something he isn't aware of, and they should've stayed in Ireland, out of sight, out of harm's way of humanity as a whole.

When he sees Connor the next day, he's certain Connor isn't smiling. It's a nervous twitch of his lips, downwards, not upwards, and red-hot anger rises in him, resulting in a fistfight as soon as he's out in the yard. His nose bleeds all the way into the night and one eye swells shut and he couldn't care less, not when he remembers the feeling of a jaw breaking beneath his fist.

Connor snaps towards him the next day, fist of a guard curled tight in the back of his jumpsuit. Murphy thinks, all of a sudden, this wasn't the right decision. Connor asked him what he wanted. He decided wrong, this can't be it, this can't be all, they should've gone with the other option, they should've fought side by side or with their backs pressed together, Connor's solid body somewhere in his near vicinity, being able to reach out, to touch, to feel and smell-

He doesn't realize he stopped in his tracks until the guard behind him prods him, words almost gentle. This time, the anger isn't red anymore, it's colorless and all-consuming and he's on the guard in a second, feeling the shock of the taser, twitching through it and still managing to plant his fist in the guard's face. They're shouting at him from all angles and he punches again, feeling something snap in his fingers, knuckles slipping off on blood and the taser comes back, long enough he's almost pissing his pants with it and they don't seem to understand why he's angry at all, why the guard deserves it and so much more, he wasn't finished with the thought, he wasn't _done_ yet—

This time around, the doctor isn't as nice anymore. Murphy is out by morning.  
  
The next day, he sees Connor in the hallway and averts his eyes in a sudden flare of— something and then he regrets it immediately, waiting for the next day and trying to make up for it with a smile, but Connor doesn't see, he's staring at the splints on his fingers instead.

After, he doesn't see him anymore.

He tries asking the guard, but he won't talk to him any longer. He tries bribing. Next, he tries violence, shouting, raging, threatening. He thinks about refusing to eat, stories of home swirling through his head, but then the guard sighs long and hard, talking through the small hatch on the door without turning around. “He's in medical. Stab-wound, right in the middle. Now eat up, all right?” He does. It comes up again, after. The guard says, “Jesus, I'd tell you if he died.”

Losing orientation and sense of time, Murphy drifts about. He gets into a few fights, nothing too serious, just enough to keep his blood pumping because he finds, somehow, it doesn't want to, like he lost purpose somewhere along the way between their Ma chasing them around with a broom and a solitary cell without having looked at his brother for weeks. Where is the point, he thinks, there is no point, maybe there never was, maybe this is Hell, even, maybe they died at the greenhouse after all. This is punishment.

Punishment.

Punishment for.

One day, he's escorted to the yard and Connor is leaning against a bench, looking like death warmed over. Murphy walks closer, slowly, just in case he's losing it completely. He wants to say a lot of things, and then he doesn't, he looks instead, letting his eyes roam, soaking up every detail he thought lost and after, when he's close enough to do it, breathing deeply, inhaling and inhaling until he's dizzy with it, until Connor puts a rough hand on his shoulder and Murphy breathes out, shuddering. They lean against the bench, shoulders pressed together.

This routine is much easier to stomach and Murphy finds himself smiling sometimes, just like that, without a reason for it. They don't talk and Murphy thinks it strange at first, but then he doesn't say anything either. He knows everything he needs to by looking at Connor and everything else he doesn't want to discuss. How Connor did it all for him. Not only here and now. Always. His curiosity isn't strong enough to make him open his mouth, no matter how badly he wants to know how Connor managed to get them here, together. He did, nothing else matters.

They share cigarettes and wounds and looks, a point of contact somewhere, mostly shoulders, sometimes hips. It gets warmer and Murphy turns his head, rubbing his chin against his shoulder, angling towards Connor and breathing in. Something ripples through Connor like a wave and he looks ahead, blinking in the sun. His voice is rough from the lack of use, “Is it better now, Murph? Ye think ye can be happy like this?”

A small noise breaks free, unwanted, and Murphy straightens with a snap, pressing their arms together. Sick heat rises in his belly, starting up a shiver that runs through his body, infecting Connor where they're pressed together and the only thing saving him is a guard coming over, ending their yard time. He can't look Connor in the eyes, too open and exposed with the endless question is stuck in his mind again— The guard is there and he turns away, letting himself be escorted back to his cell.

He doesn't sleep. He thinks: I can't remember, I can't remember, I can't remember, again and again until the word is all he is, filling him from head to toe until he has to grab his head, holding on to keep the thought in, to not let it burst free and contaminate the outside. It's too much, after all this time. It's been too _long_.

As an afterthought, hours later, almost a day later, nearly hollowed out by it all and eyes fixed on Connor walking over to him, steady and unhurried, gorgeous, he thinks: all right.

*

They're on the Most Wanted list. Mexico is nice, Smecker - not dead, apparently - said, at least until the heat blows over. Okay, they said, going where the others directed them, moving between safe houses in secret, covered by the congregation. What they don't share yet: their non-existent plan to come back. It can wait.

For now, they're free.

On Sundays, they go to church. Murphy gets a sunburn and Connor doesn't, he buys a stupid hat instead, looking like the most tourist to ever tourist until Murphy slaps it off his head, very accidentally dropping it into the Rio Grande. Most days, Murphy finds himself staring. At first, he laughs it off. Then Connor laughs it off. After, he thinks it's because of the time spent apart and even later, he thinks it's because they're alone again for the first time in forever, and still not alone in a lonely way, with the others only a short call away.

Afterwards, he stops pretending and keeps on staring.

Connor tans again, except where the bullets cut through his flesh. The new wounds Murphy can't help but reach out for now and then, letting his fingers dance over the scars, confirming, searching, mind half-convinced they'll come away bloody. They never do and he keeps reaching out, and Connor doesn't say anything and he doesn't _ask_ anything. Murphy looks and looks, thoughts in his head quiet and calm by now.

Connor won't ask again.

He did it all for him. He did it all their lives and yet again, he thinks Murphy doesn't know. It's not his fault, really, since it took him a lifetime, but still, Murphy keeps his eyes on him, willing him to ask the question, eager to compare how it feels to hear it when it used to haunt him so badly and now— They're stuck without the question, he doesn't know how to move forward.

Blowing out smoke in his direction, Connor lowers his eyebrows. He looks very grumpy, and then he looks away again.

Murphy stares, ants all over his skin.

“What.”

“Nothin'.” Murphy steps a bit closer, hands in his pockets. They're on the porch, standing in the shade and hiding from the sun. Sweat tickles on his back, joining the ants. He licks his lips.

Eventually, Connor turns his head and says, “I won't ask again, Murph. I can't offer anything else.” It sounds final somehow, like he made up his mind about something.

He's made up his mind wrong, then. He must have. Knowing what Murphy wants just by Murphy staring at him- how on earth doesn't he know about the fucking ants and the mud in his insides.

“There _is_ ,” Murphy says, turning and brushing his chest against Connor's arm. “One more, aye? Ask me a last time?”

“There is nothing else I can give,” Connor says roughly. His arm stays pressed against Murphy's chest, swaying them with his breathing. “I only asked because there was always something to be done to improve- I can't get us out of here, I'm spent, I don't- If I ask and yer answer is no, I wouldn't know what to _do_ , everything I do buries us that much deeper in this fucking huge crater full of shit-”

“Ask me,” Murphy says in Italian, swallowing, switching to Spanish, “Ask me.”

Connor freezes.

“Ask me.” Russian. Murphy crowds in, gravitating towards him like he always did, two people drifting too close, occupying one space. He's burning from the inside. “Ask me.” One last time, in German. Memories of mud on his face, the real one, the mud that stuck to him and sunk under his skin like a sin.

Connor swallows, and Murphy watches. “An bhfuil tú sásta?”

Breathing out a quiet sound, Murphy feels his face split into a grin. “I fucking missed this, ye have no idea. I love the way ye make it sound.” He grins some more at Connor's incredulous face. “The answer is no. Not _yet_.”

There's a beat of silence and Connor still doesn't get it.

Murphy sighs, blood pumping like he's running a marathon. They're sharing air already and Connor stays rooted to the ground. Heat pools low in his body and this time, Murphy lets it, taking the final step and lifting his hands to cup Connor's neck, thumb over the Virgin Mary.

_Hail Mary, Full of Grace._

He wants it to be gentle, a careful brush of lips, nothing to startle Connor with the sudden turn of events, reigning in the urge to press forward, to taste. They stay like this, breathing against each other, Murphy blinking at Connor's face, at the eyes Connor closed since he came near, and then Connor snaps with a groan and they're crashing together, mouths open.

Not yet, Murphy thinks. He draws off, voice rough, “Let's go inside, aye?”

He loses his shirt before the door closes behind them, the rest of his clothes follow before they reach the bedroom. On fire, he watches Connor stacking the pillows on top of each other and leaning back against them, almost sitting upright with it. He pulls Murphy in until his back clings to Connor's chest and shirt, and Connor's arms wind around him from behind, holding him tight. Sweaty and dazed, Murphy bends his arm up, burying his fingers in Connor's hair and rocking back against his solid body, rocking up into his hand.

There's nothing impulsive about the position, about the quiet words he whispers in Murphy's ear. It's deliberate and sure like he thought about it, like he had time to think about it for _decades_. Murphy shakes through it.

Not yet.

Coaxing Connor out of his clothes, after, takes more effort than Murphy anticipated. He slows down, brushing his fingers against overheated skin, shy under Connor's shirt, kissing him again. His quiet restraint makes Murphy's heart swell to a point he's afraid his ribcage will burst any second, hammering against the bone so wildly Connor must hear it for sure and when he splays his hand on Connor's chest, he thinks he feels the same beneath his palm. Shifting, drifting, aligning. Skipping a beat when Murphy's fingers scratch through coarse hair on his chest, brushing against fading scars, splaying on his back and soaking up the ink.

It goes on for long enough that Murphy feels hot all over again, nothing smolders any longer, it's a wildfire, insisting and obvious, and Connor notices with a jerk, groaning like he didn't _believe_ -

Not yet.

He lets Murphy take off his clothes after all and Murphy slides over him, pinning him with his weight and swallowing his moans. Within minutes, Connor shakes loose and Murphy follows from the shock of it, the speed and urgency and the other thing, unnamed, between them.

Not yet.

He feels sweaty and disgusting, and lighter when the mud floating through his insides spills free at last- he's been covered in blood and gore before, this is nothing. He slides off but only half-way, letting his thigh stay over Connor's groin, sticking to oversensitive skin. Connor hisses, winding his arm around him like an attack instead of a hug, muscles rippling with the force of it.

not yet not yet not yet

Murphy feels the heart under his palm pick up speed again like Connor knows- of course he knows, he always does. It's why he loves him, why there never was a choice.

Connor curls his hand around Murphy's arm, around the underarm. Around the cross.

 _Now_.

 


End file.
